When you look in a person’s eyes, it’s almost like a tradeoff of “invites” to see each other for what you are, or what you think you are. Sz are extra sensitive to this, especially if the delusions are about people. If you’re comfortable with looking at people directly in the eye, not only are you making incredible headway, but you’ll make a great salesman .

I do that sometimes when doing sales but recently I been feeling sleepy and not mellow/happy enough,it makes me make less eye contact,feels very lousy inside,I don’t know if I should add more meds or a change in meds to clear these problem

I have been diagnosed with both SZ and autism. I don’t like people looking at me, and vice versa. I get overwhelmed by the flow of input. It’s like I can see every movement of every muscle on their face individually, but they all run over me at once. It bothers me to the point where I have trouble concentrating on what they are saying if they talk to me. I’m told this is mostly due to the autism, but that people with SZ also tend to be more likely to suffer from autism than the general population.

Eye contact is considered threatening to some people. It’s lumped together with social problems in my abnormal psychology textbook, making eye contact is actually quite intimate, next to making physical contact with someone. Some people feel threatened and look away (submissive) after making eye contact, some people only make eye contact with people they respect (they dont want to show their emotions to some people). Eye contact makes emotions very easy to read. The eyes say everything about how someone feels.

I for one get offended when people dont make eye contact with me, I consider it disrespectful. I am known to glare, I am told. I look at people in the eye and hardly blink, if I respect them and want to hear what they are saying. I went on a date with a girl and she hardly made eye contact with me. I did not like that. I dated this one girl six months ago who didnt take her eyes off of mine. The next day we became friends with benefits. She had some antisocial/psychopathic traits, rather bad ones, and I have slight ones. I guess that’s why we had eye contact for 2 hours straight over dinner. And that’s the only female I’ve been intimate with, the rest were males (im bisexual).

Its basically “looking into someone’s soul” when you make eye contact. Eyes speak louder than words. I have read about body language and can tell if people are lying or telling the truth based on their eye movements and blinking rates, ect. I give a dead glare without trying, I have trauma and slight psychopathic tendencies and so other people dont intimidate me (among other things, theres a list of reasons why I am never intimidated, a few being that I am a competitive powerlifter and have 4 belts in Krav Maga and know that my body is a lethal weapon).

When people are searching for how to put their thoughts into words, they often look away and say empty words like “but, uh…” “um” “like” “kind of” that sort of stuff, then find their words and resume eye contact. When people are trying to remember things they look to their left. When people are lying they look to their right.

In some cases it’s also how one is trained. Nearly everyone in my family has been or still is a lifeguard. They scan for danger… that is how they are trained. If you ever end up in a room full of lifeguards… they don’t make eye contact with each other. It’s like their whole little lifeguard culture. Also, they are told not to make eye contact when patrons are talking to them. They need to scan the water in case a swimmer goes down.

My sis, brothers, cousins aren’t being disrespectful, it’s how they are and were trained. Always maintain a 10-20 second scan in case of emergency. Make sure the scene is safe. My brothers and my sis will also scan restaurants in case of choking hazard.

It’s odd hanging with lifeguards. They don’t look at each other when they talk. They are all used to that. It’s normal for them. They even say… how can you tell which rookie is going get fired? It’s one who looks at you and not the water.

There is an art to eye contact. Too much of a constant stare is considered aggressive. Too little or none at all is perceived as being aloof, disinterested. The perfect amount is somewhere in the middle.

I personally love looking at people’s eyes, noticing the various colors of them. Eyes are beautiful and intriguing. I also like it when people smile with their eyes. That is a true smile.

I feel it’s a way for someone to get in your head, usually after eye contact that persons voice will begin in my head, usually with negative/hurtful things, so I choose to refrain from eye contact, but I have noticed I feel drained if people are staring at me and I make no eye contact… I guess there is some perfect balance I have not found.

For me I don’t make eye contact while I’m talking because I tend to forget what I’m saying and get overwhelmed by that person paying attention to me. I think it’s more a self esteem issue than anything. When someone is talking to me I do look them in the eyes. Usually when I’m talking to someone I look at something in the room and stare at that without really looking at it. I guess this is something I should work on.

I have poor eye contact, especially when I am psychotic - its not great even when I am more stable, especially with strangers - I am almost certain that I possess some mild autism traits - my nephew has mild autism, it runs in families

My son doesn’t seem to have a problem making or keeping eye contact however he does not have low self-esteem or social anxiety in fact the opposite as he has a fairly big ego

Eye contact is something that I have had to work on and as my self-esteem got better it got easier. To have someone look me in the eye and actually pay attention to me… I just couldn’t handle it and it would make me blush, so I did my best to make sure that didn’t happen. Still does sometimes however it’s much better. For the most part I’m ok with me now so I’m ok with others ‘seeing’ me.